I just wanted to share with you something that I believe has really improved my CFS. I know that meditation sometimes get a bit of hippy/’only for gurus’ reputation, but it has really helped me in coping with the illness. Meditation and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are perfect for each other.

The main way it has helped is in just getting myself out of my mind (“My god, I’m so tired, I can’t believe I’m still like this, everything hurts, I’m sick of being in bed, why me?, that light is killing me…”) and tuning into something else for a while. You’re probably sick of listening to messages from your body, all the pain and stiffness, but in meditation, you really listen to your body and get some sense of what’s going on. I often found in meditating that my body was telling me to ease up and stop being so hard on myself. Sometimes I think we spend so long thinking about our symptoms that our thoughts become unending. We end up tying ourselves in knots and we get used to this constant chatter. But sometimes, it’s good to step away from that and just take a bit of breather.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have days when I forget to do it, even though I know doing it morning and evening really helps. At the moment, if I can squeeze 15 minutes into the day, I’m happy, but ideally I would spend a bit longer. The good news is you don’t have to sit there for hours upon end waiting to be enlightened. Start off with 1 minute- 1 minute! We’ve all got a minute, haven’t we?!

This is one the best videos I’ve seen. It’s quirky, effective and best of all, calming your mind can be achieved in a minute. There’s even a timer included in the video, so you know when the time is up.

Just give it a go- what’s the harm? Meditating is like a muscle- you have to keep using it to get the benefit from it. Start with 1 minute and once you’re comfortable, maybe add another minute on top. Within days you’ll feel the benefit, I promise! Little things won’t bother you and your sleep might even improve.

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4 Responses to “Meditation and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”

Thank you for posting my video, “How to Meditate in a Moment,” and for your kind words about it. I’m glad that it has been helpful to you.

There’s one important thing about One-Moment Meditation that I need to clarify, however …

One-Moment Meditation is not about starting with one minute and then, when you have time, or when you feel comfortable with the minute, adding another minute to this. It’s not additive. It’s not cumulative.

I have nothing against longer forms of meditation, but One-Moment Meditation is different. It is about learning that it doesn’t take a long time to make a meaningful change in your state of mind. It’s about training yourself to drop into a state of deeper peace quickly, because, really, deep peace can be found in just a moment! So if you see this just as a stepping stone to longer meditation, you’re missing this valuable lesson.

Indeed, if conquering fear is the goal, then any thought of time is probably counter-productive. Don’t worry about how long you can meditate for. Just do it for a moment. Just do it now, now, and maybe, now.

Hi Martin- thank you so, so much for taking the time to visit my blog, I’m honoured. Thank you for your insightful comments- as you say, a minute is all you need to create meaningful change. Love your work- thank you so much!

Beautiful story, Katie! I found meditation to be really helpful with my sleep problems. I could sleep and I felt totally exhausted and I was already giving up, meditation saved me Also one thing that I recommend is noticing your words,because they can also influence how you are feeling during the day. It’s proven that the words you say can influence the water molecules inside of our body, so we can actually talk ourselves to be more energied and feel better you can check my blog.